`Biggest Convention` Has Lots To Fascinate The Pc User

December 02, 1988|By Dennis Lynch.

Remember this old bad joke? ``I just flew in from Las Vegas-and boy, are my arms tired.`` Well, I`ve just returned for Las Vegas, and my arms are tired, too, but not from flying. They`re tired from carrying around the bags full of goodies that I picked up at COMDEX.

COMDEX is the personal computer industry`s largest exposition for dealers. This year the convention was being hyped with typical Las Vegas understatement as ``the biggest convention anywhere, anytime in the history of the world.``

And, indeed, with more than 110,000 attendees and nearly 2000 exhibitors, COMDEX broke every record in Las Vegas` convention book if not in the world`s.

Some other record holders were there also. Olympic medalists Matt Biondi, Florence Griffith-Joyner and Edwin Moses were at various booths signing autographs.

An even bigger presence-at least in size-was King Kong Bundy, the professional wrestler who is the spokesgoon for Vendex Computers.

Another King was there, too: an Elvis impersonator was at the Tecmar booth, looking sheepish as he handed out plastic bags.

Other notables put in an appearance as well, including some of the glitterati of the high-tech set. Wonderboy billionaire Bill Gates from Microsoft was there to praise the joys of DOS 4.0 and OS/2, the IBM PC`s new operating systems.

And even the elusive Dr. An Wang, chairman of Wang Labs, put in a rare public appearance to push Wang Computers` new products.

All of this glitz was a far cry from the first COMDEX held in 1979. That meeting of mainframe and mini-computer dealers drew barely 4,000 attendees. Since then the convention has become dominated by the PC side of the industry and has increased in size every year as PC use has increased.

Nowadays the convention is pretty much a celebration of products geared for the IBM PC, but other computer systems-especially the Apple Macintosh-had a much higher profile this year than in the past.

In fact, the most exciting product I saw showcased at the convention was not an IBM product at all but instead one that Commodore is working on for its Amiga computer.

It`s a ``video image editor`` that connects a VCR and an Amiga. Using Commodore`s software, you can edit anything you want in a video image that you have shot.

You can airbrush out details, or add details more to your liking. The possibilities are amazing. Imagine this: You could have a copy of

``Casablanca`` that puts you in the place of Bogart or Bergman.

The biggest crowds at the convention were drawn to biggest booths, especially those put up by Lotus, Wordperfect and Aldus.

Lotus has suffered some serious setbacks the last year, most particularly the massive delay in releasing Lotus 3.0, the latest version of its electronic spreadsheet. Currently version 3.0 is not expected until next June, but even that might be a charitable estimate.

The early version of Lotus 3.0 that I previewed may make all that wait worthwhile, however. The graphics have been improved considerably, and no longer does a separate program have to be loaded to print a graph.

Lotus` new ability to link multiple spreadsheets in a three-dimensional manner is also impressive and surprisingly easy to master.

Wordperfect, the leader in the word-processing field, had a huge, splashy booth that celebrated a year of unprecedented growth. Its latest release, Wordperfect 5.0, drew enthusiastic crowds admiring its new ability to add desktop publishing features to word processing.

That ability might in the long run hurt the fortunes of Aldus Corp., makers of Pagemaker, a desktop publishing package for Macintosh and IBM systems.

For now, though, Aldus is on a roll, as Pagemaker 3.0 has won critical and popular acclaim. At COMDEX there was a waiting line of attendees eager to get into Aldus` training booth.

My most pleasant conversation at the convention came not at any of the giant booths but at the relatively small display set up by Quicksoft, makers of PC-Write 3.0, a popular low-cost word processor. PC-Write is shareware, meaning that it is legal for anyone to distribute free copies of the program, and you pay for the program only if you try it and like it.

Bob Wallace, creator of PC-Write, took the new version of PC-Write through its paces for me. As a longtime user of the package, I was impressed by its improvements.

This article was written using the new version of the program. If you`d like more information about PC-Write, contact Quicksoft at 206-282-0452.

The best demo disk of the convention was PC-Globe+, a software product that turns your computer into an atlas, with maps, facts and figures for more than 177 different countries.

Visually stunning and chock full of interesting data, PC-Globe+ should be a great product for students, world travelers and anyone interested in geography. It`s available for IBM computers for $69.95 and can be ordered by calling 800-255-2789.

I overheard my favorite COMDEX quote as I was walking behind a model who was heading toward a booth at which she was to appear. She was wearing a black leather mini-skirt, a low-cut leather top, boots and chains, and she carried a cat-o`-nine-tails.

I have no idea exactly what she was promoting, but I did hear her say to the public relations man next to her, ``Las Vegas is soooo sleazy.`` When I heard that, I knew it was time to go home.